Am I working too hard?

When I was 14 or so, I marched into my youth pastor's office and told him, "God has called me to be a pastor!"

He replied, "Really? That's good. But you've gotta go with your gifts." He knew I was a computer geek.

There was a comment posted for my "Mission Drift" entry (except it ended up under "People are jerks"--both before I migrated back to blogger) where I had the following thought posed to me:

If you feel that you have to work hard at what you do could be a sign that this particular shoe isn't for you to fit yourself in. A more useful tip is to consult with God about this, he can guide you in the direction you seek.

It's a really good point. I've often said that myself...to others. I feel like I need to give some history. Why? Because I feel an overwhelming need to spill my guts all over the computer screen. No, not really. But I think that I could give some insight into the struggle I'm having now. Maybe I can help someone else. Maybe someone else can help me.

I used to enjoy ministry...a lot. More times than I can count, I said, "I can't believe I'm getting paid for this! Life is great." Then, something happened. I'm not sure if it was simply a focus shift within our church, or if it also had to do with a focus shift within me, but something changed. What's frustrating is that I can't even put my finger on it. I'd like to, but I can't. Because I couldn't put my finger on it, there's even a chance that I overstayed my welcome at my last church. I'm just not sure. But what was once my life's greatest passion became my greatest source of pain. Now, I can't say that it is my greatest source of pain nowadays, but sometimes it is a great source of frustration. I've often asked myself the question that was posed to me above...about whether I'm trying to shoehorn myself into something that's not me. But I have to tell you that "seek God" is a pretty trite suggestion, even though it's all I've got.

Perhaps that's part of the problem. For western evangelicals, so much of faith is conceptual. We lack in the "actual" component. The thing is, the "actual" is what God has led me toward over the last couple of years. I spent too many years giving people the conceptual instead of helping them to find the "actual" for themselves. And I watched most of those people fail...miserably. This, in turn, made me feel like a failure as I had taken their spiritual development to be my responsibility.

It's not.

It never was.

Each person is to work out their own salvation. Should they get help? Yes. Absolutely. Can I be there to help? Yes. I should. So should you. But it's not my job to make sure that somebody else lives according to my "divinely inspired" western evangelical values, especially when I'm seeing more and more that my "divinely inspired" western evangelical values are pretty messed-up and non-biblical.

And there's the other side of the problem. I'm tired of the church machine, the organization, the big "spiritual beast." My heart is to simply be with people...to help lead them closer to God...to shepherd them, if you will. But I end up being so bogged down with "pastoral" stuff that I don't get the time I need to do the "pastoring" without making my family pay the price. And that's something I just won't do--make my family pay the price. They are my first responsibilty, right after my personal relationship with God.

But I'm not looking for a way out. And I'm certainly not released from my church--I just don't feel that it's time to go. I'll say this: I'm keeping myself more tuned in to know when it's time to go this time.

I told my District Superintendent recently that I probably would not be pursuing vocational pastoring after my time here is through. I'm rather looking forward to that time. Maybe then I can get on with helping people, and not worry about the "stuff."